Guess Again, Coach Dinardo

Fantastic Friday - SEC notebook

September 26, 1997|By Chris Harry of The Sentinel Staff

Talk about taking your work home with you. Louisiana State coach Gerry DiNardo spent the days after last week's emotional 31-28 home loss to Auburn being second-guessed and second-guessing himself. DiNardo had a hard time rationalizing why he called a pass play for struggling quarterback Herb Tyler - who finished 6-for-21 for 115 yards and two interceptions - on a critical third-and-2 from Auburn's 47-yard line in the fourth quarter.

LSU, which had rushed for 342 yards in the game, failed to convert. Auburn drove 80 yards for the winning score with 30 seconds left. The loss was crippling to the Tigers' SEC Western Division hopes, as Auburn, with the tiebreaker edge based on head-to-head play, now holds what amounts to a two-game lead.

''I got home Monday night about 10, grabbed a Coke, sat on the couch,'' DiNardo said. ''My wife was watching Monday Night Football. The (Pittsburgh) Steelers have the ball and it's third-and-1, so she turns to me and says, 'I wonder if they'll run or throw.' Like, I need this.' ''

OH, BOY!

GEORGIA ANNOUNCED last week it will rekindle its one-time ferocious rivalry with Clemson in 2002-03, a development that didn't exactly have Bulldogs coach Jim Donnan doing cartwheels between the hedges.

''We're trying to win this conference and you've got to consider the teams we play in this conference week and week out,'' Donnan said. ''Plus, we've got a natural rivalry with Georgia Tech.''

PLAY SOMEBODY

THROUGH THE first four weeks of the '97 season, the SEC has a 19-1 record against non-conference opponents (Southern Methodist beat Arkansas, 31-9, for the lone blemish). The highest winning percentage achieved by the SEC in non-conference games was 83 percent (36-7-1) in 1959. Of course, teams then were willing to play a lot better outside competition.

LIGHTS, PLEASE

MISSISSIPPI, COMING off a bye week, welcomes Vanderbilt this weekend for a night game. The Rebels should play after sundown more often. Since installing lights at Vaught-Hemingway in 1990, Ole Miss is 15-0 at night.

ODDS AND ENDS

BY STUNNING Alabama, 17-16, on the road last week, Arkansas became the first team to win back-to-back games at Tuscaloosa since Texas Christian turned the Crimson Tide in 1955-56. The Razorbacks upset 'Bama, 20-19, in 1995 and wound up representing the Western Division at the SEC Championship Game that season. . . .

LSU tailback Cecil Collins has rushed for 404 yards - 63 more than the next-best SEC ground-gainer (Florida's Fred Taylor, 341 yards) - but Collins is ineligible to be listed among the league or NCAA leaders because he hasn't participated in 75 percent of his team's games. He missed LSU's opener. . . . Tim Couch's seven touchdown passes for Kentucky last week matched the team's total for 1996. . . .

Tennessee had 1 yard rushing in the last three quarters against Florida.